The Battle of Mollwitz 10 April 1741

The Battle was fought by Prussia and Austria during the First Silesian War (early War of the Austrian Succession). It was the first battle of the new Prussian King Frederick II, in which both sides made numerous military blunders but the Prussian Army still managed to attain victory. This battle cemented Frederick’s authority over the newly conquered territory of Silesia and gave him valuable military experience.

 

Over the last few weeks I have been pulling together the final items needed to play out on the table top the scenarios from Frederick’s War part of the Hold the Line boardgame from Worthington Games. I have grown to like these games as they give me more control over the units as apposed to Command and Colors games which relies on having the right card in your hand.

Rule scenario book

Mollwitz scenario

So recently I painted some river terrain, woods and town markers. The trees were made out of pipe cleaners and I think look great at this scale. The river and buildings are items that I had printed out.

I had planned to attempt to play the game as a solo game but luckily Taff was able to pop over for a game.

Well we both enjoyed the game and at time the tension of allocating the Action Points was high. It was great from a strategic point and we both agreed that it gave a better game than C&C games from a command point of view. We still intend to play C&C as they are a good fun/frustrating series of games.

The game played out in 90 mins. The Austrians got off to a strong start with their heavy cavalry securing their left flank, eliminating some Prussian Cavalry. The Prussians bought their remaining cavalry, located on the other side of the river over the bridge and charged the Austrian light Cavalry on the right flank. This was supported by the Prussian Elites(Grenadiers) taking up the centre ground. Turn 11 it was all over. As in the original Battle, following a dodgy start the Prussians finally made their superior command structure count and took the win 5 victory points to 4.   

Prussian view

Unit with MP

Austrian view

Figures are 6mm Baccus.

The mat is homemade with 5″ across the flats.

Trees in 30 minutes!

I had an email a couple of weeks back about the trees in my games.

I know I posted a blog a few years back but thought I would do a quick one, again.

Step One – Find Trunks

I do not spend hours making wire armatures, i don’t have the time or the patience.

I am lucky enough to have a  Rhododendron (I think), my wife is the gardener. When pruned, I keep the cuttings to make tree trunks. The stem/branch has just the right look of a fully grown tree.                  

Stage Two – Help Them Stand

In my last article I glued the trunk to a large washer. Now I tend to drill the base of the trunk and glue in a nail or spear wire. They are small enough not to leave too visible a mark on the terrain tile. I just fill the drilled hole with cheap superglue and push in the wire/nail. It also helps during the construction. I normally have a piece of polystyrene sheet handy to stick them in like a production line.

Stage Three – Foliage

Get your “Rubberised Horse Hair” and cut circles out of it. Mine are normally about 3″ or 75mm in diameter but do not worry if they are not a perfect circle or 3″.  Then pull the layers that make up the Horse hair apart.

Take these de-laminated layers and glue them to the trunk. Keep adding the layers until you have a foliage you like. This is why size and shape do not matter too much.

I bought recently a brilliant rechargeable glue gun for a few pounds at a “budget” supermarket. Not having the wire really helps. It takes five minutes to charge before you can use it.

Stage Four – Leaves

What ever show I go to I look around for cheap scatter material. At the last show there was someone selling bags of home made scatter (coloured sawdust) 4 for a £1. I never worry too much about colour matching I just throw it all together for this type of use. I put all the scatter in a carrier bag inside a bin. the picture is not great but the scatter fills a Christmas sweet tin in size.

Next get some spray glue and wearing a glove on my left hand, I hold the trunk while screening the trunk from over-spray apply the glue until it foams white. I tend to only spray the tops. This leaves the underside bare and I think it looks more like branches.

I then transfer the tree to my right gloved hand to immerse in the scatter material. The fresh gloved hand stops scatter sticking to the over-sprayed glove. Shake off the excess back into the bin and you have a tree.

There you have it.

In 30 minutes I made 8 trees. I worked out the cost to be about £6 for all 8. This size of tree is usually on sale for about £10-12 pounds each at shows, so give it a go and save a fortune.

The dearest part is the Rubberised hair but I have had a 6×4 sheet from a local upholsterers, for a while now and it is still going strong. I make my trees large but  if you like smaller, then smaller trunks mean smaller diameter circles. Here are some 28mm ECW for scale with the rest of the trees.